


Pleading with thunderstorms

by Trojie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addiction, Detox, Episode Related, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You ever loved someone and had to watch them fail because you couldn't find a way to help them?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pleading with thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo for the prompt 'substance addiction'. Episode coda to S05E14. Beta-read by Kissyn and Jasmasson, who are both amazing.

It isn't Sam's fault. Dean knows that, just like it isn't Cas's fault he ate half a cow's worth of hamburger. Famine was literally in town. But they still have to deal with the fact that Sam fell off the wagon, and that means lockdown, containment, detox. 

It also means yelling, screaming and pleading, and threats, and begging; anything Sam can think of to say that might work. Eventually Dean can't listen any more.

It isn't faith that has him shouting at the sky for help. It's that for once, he wishes something out there was bigger and stronger than him. Hell, if Dad were still alive, that's where he'd be going, but he doesn't have Dad to fall back on any more. There's just him. And well, right now, just him isn't gonna cut it. 

But Dean gets about as much of an answer as Sam does when it comes to yelling for help. At least Sam knows who he's bellowing at, and why he's stuck in there, and hopefully why no-one's answering him. Dean's just got an empty sky and the weird feeling of knowing, without actually believing, that he's shouting at something that's really there. 

After a while, he gives up and climbs up onto the hood of the Impala, and pretends that the familiar cold metal underneath him and the stars in the sky he's staring up at are calming enough to make him forget the sound of Sam scratching and screaming himself bloody in Bobby's panic room. 

It isn't working. 

'This is the right thing to do,' says Castiel, looming out of the dark. Dean wants to punch him, but it wouldn't do any damage. He wants to tell him to back off, but he won't. There isn't much you can do about Castiel, but that doesn't make Dean any more inclined to let the angel walk all over him and then moralise about it.

'I just locked my kid brother up because he's jonesing for Satanic crack and no-one ever bothered to invent demon-blood methadone,' he says instead of going for the punch or the swear words, rolling his eyes. 'Forgive me if I'm not feeling smug and virtuous about it.' He clenches his fists, telling himself to keep his cool.

Cas's expression is flat and confused and kind of squinty, as usual. 'Demon's blood is non-opioid,' he says, as if that was in any way relevant. 

'Jimmy's still in there with you, right?' Dean asks, still not looking at the angel because if he does he really will fucking punch him, and screw the consequences and the broken fingers. 'Somewhere?'

Cas pauses for a while but he does eventually say, 'Yes.'

'You ask him,' says Dean. 'You ask him, if his little girl was hurt and scared and strung out on drugs, would he be able to lock her up for her own good and listen to her scream, and feel good about it?'

'Sam is a grown man,' Cas points out, and Dean's on his feet before he knows what he's doing, the red mist finally coming down like it's been threatening to since he saw Sam with blood all over his face and that starving look underneath it.

'I don't care,' he growls, shoving into what little personal space Cas seems to have. 'This time it isn't his fault and _I still have to hurt him for it_.'

Cas takes one measured step back, and faces Dean like the calm center of a storm. 'He will thank you afterwards.'

A laugh bubbles up through Dean's rage. 'No, he won't,' he says bitterly. 'He'll understand, but he won't thank me. Tell me, Cas. You ever loved someone and watched them hurt themselves over and over and over trying to do the right thing? You ever loved someone and had to watch them fail because you couldn't find a way to help them?'

He stomps back into the house. Maybe he can at least get Sammy a bottle of water or something. 

He pretends Sam's yelling drowns out Castiel saying 'Yes.'

***

'Sam?'

Dean slams the eyehole open when there's a suspicious lack of noise from the panic room. He puts the water bottle he'd brought down on a crate and tries to see inside. 'Sammy?'

'Down here,' says Sam from the inside of the door, at about Dean's waist-height. He coughs like he's hacking something up. 'Just sitting - haven't gone anywhere.'

Dean shoves the bottle through the hatch and sits down too, leans against the door. 'Thought you might need a drink.'

Sam's laugh is still mostly a cough. 'That's not the kind I want, but thanks.'

'Yeah, well, you can't have the kind you want.'

'I know.'

They sit in silence for a long time. Dean almost starts to drift off - the only sound is Bobby knocking around upstairs and that's almost soothing, after … well, after Sam. 

'Hey, Dean?' Sam asks after a while.

'Yeah, Sammy?'

Sam's voice echoes in the iron bubble he's stuck in. 'I thought … for a minute there, I thought you'd gone.'

'Yeah, well,' says Dean, wincing internally, thunking his head back against the door. 'Wouldn't go far.'


End file.
